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Monday, 18 February 2013

Nothing's gonna stop us now?

Ladies and gentlemen welcome to this weeks instalment of my blog. As promised, I am now posting my blogs regularly and on time. It's time to stop being lazy and becoming better prepared. It's time to step up a gear and work towards my goals. My time is now.

So to start off this weeks blog, I want to congratulate myself. It's not very often I give myself praise or credit for things I've done. I am usually always looking for something to improve on and very much over analysing myself and finding negatives to work on. However last Friday night I was determined to give this 1.5 mile run in 10mins a go. I wasn't happy that my last time of 11.17. I know I can do better then this. So Friday evening I decided I wanted to go for it. Instead of gradually building myself up I wanted to see if it can be done. More importantly for morale I wanted to really test myself. So Instead of going to the pub or chilling with my feet up, I made myself to the gym. The gym was empty. I prefer it like this. No one hogging machines and no one to give that how are you doing nod too.

I set up the treadmill. I worked out that I needed to run at 9mph. I needed to run at 9mph for ten whole minutes. This was the biggest test yet. So I started the run. Blaring away on my headphones was some pure motivation by the rocky soundtrack. 1 minute in and I was thinking never mind hearts on fire my legs were hotter then hell. How can I be this unfit? How can my legs run for over 60mims and be fine, but run for 1 minute and now ache? Simple... When you train for endurance your muscles and blood vessels develop differently. Muscles develop to gradually disperse stored energy a little bit like when you squeeze down on a hose pipe. When you train for speed. Your muscles develop to disperse energy rapidly. Kind of like having a bucket of water thrown over you. So back to the treadmill.. So 1 minute in and I doubting whether I can see this through. My mind was telling me not a chance. I needed to adjust myself to the increase in speed. I had to power through these first stages. I did. 7 minutes in and I couldn't believe I was nearly there. My doubts were slowly dissolving and with that self belief was starting to engross me. I started this blog to prove to myself, that I can do what ever I want. I can achieve anything I set out to achieve. 10 minutes hit. And I had 180 metres to go. I was slightly confused, but ran the distance. I finished on 10:23 seconds. Okay so my maths was slightly out, but the effort I put into this run was first class. On Wednesday I finished in 11:17 seconds. In 2 days I managed to shave off just under a minute with just pure determination and belief, possible a little help from rocky. But I was immensely proud of this.

I went home and showered. Then went to chill at my mate lee's house. I thought i would treat myself to 1 beer. And did. And After how i was feeling that evening, I just couldn't wait for Saturdays game.

I woke up on Saturday. Game day. Sale HC were off to Liverpool to visit Liverpool Sefton HC. It was a really nice morning. The sun was out and the warmth that the rising sun provided was just enough to just take the edge of the crispy early spring air. The sky's were blue. Cloudless for the first Saturday in months. I woke up really excited...Last week we played Timperley HC. The game was very tough. A proper game of hockey. I absolutely loved that game. Not so much the result. But the game. It was intense, quick and fluid....All I wanted from this week against Sefton was to sustain the effort and intensity I showed the week before. We met at the club and everyone was relaxed. It feels like a massive weight has been lifted from off our shoulders. There is no pressure for us to get promotion and we are comfortably in the top 4. The only thing we need to do now is play our best hockey. And enjoy playing our best hockey. We travelled. On the way to the game I thought about the Timperley game. What did I do well? What could I have done better? This is the way I work out my game goals. My goals for Saturday's game were to sustain my defensive performances and improve offensively.

I honestly don't think I have enjoyed a game before as much as I did this last weekend. I played with confidence and belief. I played like a winner like a champion of last year. I didn't do anything truly amazing, so I am not going to be big headed. But I did all the simple things excellently. There was not much for me to do offensively, but I was never beaten defensively. Not once. Neither winger had anything that I couldn't deal with. I was even in the right place at the right time to save Captain H by clearing a shot over the bar. So to sum up my game. I was Disciplined and Solid.

It's really starting to make me smile that the things I were worried the most about are the things I'm now starting to get good at. I thank everyone for the encouragement and support. It's helped.

Okay Sport aside. Saturday night. A night to remember. A few of the Hockey boys decided to try out a night at the ruby lounge. Yes it's a Saturday and no it's not caged Asylum. It was a power ballad night. I don't think I have ever enjoyed a night out in town in my whole 9 years of ventures as much as that night. The music was brilliant, the atmosphere was immense and the company was outrageous. I don't think I have ever seen a group of lads enjoy that much cheese since dominoes did a buy 1 get 2 free deal. I well and truly vote that Sale Mens 1s do power ballads for our end of season do next month.

Okay that's enough from me tonight. So the morale of this blog is about belief. Believe and truly do believe you can do something and you will. Nothing will hinder you, and any obstacle you can over come. In the emphatic words of a truly great power ballad. "Nothing's gonna stop us now."